


To Bridge Between the Distances

by romanticalgirl



Category: Country Music RPF, Drive-By Truckers
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:20:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I might look these lessons in the eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Bridge Between the Distances

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/profile)[**inlovewithnight**](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/) for the beta. Also thanks to [](http://quicknow.livejournal.com/profile)[**quicknow**](http://quicknow.livejournal.com/) for giving me the Truckers and for asking for and encouraging this, and to [](http://minervacat.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://minervacat.livejournal.com/)**minervacat** for help, inspiration, encouragement and making my ovaries explode with the thought of Mike Cooley with his baby daughter.
> 
> Originally posted 6-29-08

Everyone always considered Jason “the kid”, which served enough purpose that he didn’t mind. Occasionally he’d try to play it down, but there was never really anything that mattered enough to fight about , especially since in his world fighting happened with fists and boots and bottles, and Jason’s always been more about fighting with words, which means he always loses even if he’s right.

Still, he’s grown up enough to know what he wants and to have a life, even if it’s with that goddamn guitar in his hands and his father’s disapproval. His parents think Shonna’s a bad influence, filling his head with growling guitars and pounding drums, dreams that dance like faded stars in the corner of bars, old country breaking hearts on the jukebox in the corner. Jason could tell him that Shonna’s not doing anything he hasn’t been doing all his life, she just makes it all seem real. They’re in love to the sound of a throbbing bass, a sweet melody playing underneath, and that drowns out everything else.

She introduces him to Patterson with a smile so wicked he almost thinks it’s some sort of joke. Patterson’s tooling around on his guitar and Jason sits down on the coffee table, knees touching Patterson’s, picking up the tune and playing along.

Patterson’s smiling, which does something funny to Jason’s heart and his head. He’s playing a song he’s never played before, but he knows it, and everything else in the world disappears until there’s just the two of them and music, and for the first time ever, Jason knows what he’s going to do with the rest of his life, and he’s found the people he’s going to do it with.

Patterson laughs when it’s all over and there’s another laugh that lifts Patterson’s up, something low and throaty, and Jason meets Mike Cooley for the first time. Cooley looks at Patterson like he owns him, and then he looks at Jason, and Jason knows the score. He’s in dangerous water, and it’s time to sink or swim, so he holds out a bottle and smiles back at Cooley, offering up a truce. Mike hesitates before he takes the whiskey, and Jason thinks it’s the first and only time he ever does, but eventually he’s got the bottle in his hand and there are three guitars and somewhere Shonna’s playing bass and this music, _their_ music is the beat of his heart.

**

According to Cooley, Patterson falls in love like a teenage girl – deep and intense and scribbling ‘forever’ on notebooks until the next damn thing comes along and catches his eye. Patterson knows Cooley’s right, because Cooley’s always right. The truth of the matter is that Patterson falls in love with Jason the night he meets him, this fat-ass kid with dreams in his eyes and music in his soul like Patterson can’t believe. He’s so fucking earnest and open that Cooley shakes his head from across the room, but Patterson ignores him and keeps playing, letting Jason take the lead every now and again.

Cooley’s face goes still as he watches, because that’s what Cooley does when Patterson’s being a petulant child, which Patterson does often enough that he knows how Cooley reacts. Still, there’s something about this kid that Patterson needs, nearly as much as Jason so obviously needs this, maybe even needs him. So Patterson keeps ignoring Cooley for now, letting the guitar fill the spaces, letting it reach out and say all the things he needs to say like he always does. Cooley eventually relaxes, taking what Patterson’s giving him and Patterson takes comfort from the distant flare of the cigarette and the knowledge that, like always, if he looks to his left, Cooley’s there.

Patterson knows without a doubt what’s going to come of this. He’s half in love with Jason and all in love with Cooley and if he can love them both, then they’ll make this all work. It’s hard, bringing someone into the fold that, when he’s honest, is like a marriage – stronger and more solid and safer than any real marriage anybody Patterson knows has ever had – like bringing in a baby, only grown up and making more personal demands. Babies want food and love and comfort and changing, and grown men want recognition and equal time and guitar solos and lead vocals, and there’s always the chance they’ll want love and comfort too. Patterson has both of those in spades, but Cooley’s very tight with what he gives out, and so Patterson has to decide if he’s got enough for everyone, enough to make up the difference when Cooley shuts down and Jason gets puppy-needy for petting.

It’s decided before the night is over, maybe even before the song is over. Cemented over a bottle of whiskey and a drunken set that isn’t ever going to leave Patterson’s daddy’s house, full of Hank Williams and Lynyrd Skynyrd and Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard and David Bowie and the most fucked up version of The Kinks “Close to the Wire” that Patterson’s ever dreamed of. The night ends with Shonna on Jason’s lap, leaning over to kiss Patterson and Cooley and then leaning into Jason like he’s all she’ll ever need. Patterson swallows hard and watches them leave, waiting until everyone else is gone before he lets Cooley take him home.

**

Cooley drives like he’s got the law on his tail, too many viewings of “Smokey and the Bandit” in his life for Patterson’s taste, especially when Cooley starts quoting the dialogue and expects Patterson to be Sally Field. The car fishtails every now and again as he whips around corners of dead silent roads that come alive with flapping wings and ghosts as Cooley raises dry Alabama dust and chokes the night they leave behind. Patterson’s not sure where they end up, but the moon is hanging about three inches away, heavy like a nursing mother’s breast and making Patterson’s mouth dry. He quenches his thirst with Cooley, laying on the hood of his late model Cadillac and waiting for the sun to rise. He’s got places to be, but no place he’s rather be than here, so they fall asleep together and wake up in the early morning, shivering from the dew.

The car idles outside Patterson’s house, spitting like a pissed off dragon with a hangover, and Patterson turns his head. His hair is a mess, frizzy as fuck from the humidity, so he rakes a hand through it and smiles. Cooley rolls his eyes and shakes his head and then tells Patterson to get the fuck out, which is all Patterson really needs to hear. He’ll call Jason after a shower and a cup of coffee and two becomes three as easy as that. He knows Cooley’ll go home and have another shot and another cigarette and then crawl into bed and watch bad TV until he crashes, Jerry Springer and People’s Court ringing in his ears.

**

Jason takes to touring like ducks take to water, wide-eyed and wondering, like a virgin seeing his first naked girl. He’s got a hard on for the first three weeks and he’s not sure if it’s from the close confines of the bus and being around Patterson and Cooley or if it’s from being on stage, or some kind of combination of it all. In some ways he feels like an outsider, which makes sense since Patterson and Cooley have been together since forever, and in other ways he feels like he’s part of something, maybe like the little tag-along brother you can’t quite get rid of. He gets the feeling that Cooley tolerates him, and he’s clear enough that there’s never going to be the kind of ease there is with Patterson, and he’s okay with that, or tells himself he will be. It hurts a little, but the crowds give back whatever the distance in Cooley takes, and that makes it all right.

He talks to Shonna on the phone, lovesick phone calls that start with the shows and end in private with words he doesn’t want anyone else to hear. She knows about music and knows about all of this, but it doesn’t change the fact that he misses her and wants her, and every pretty girl with big hair and big tits and a big smile is nothing like Shonna, but everything like what he’s missing. He channels it all into their phone calls and when they’re near enough to home that she can come out to the shows, he makes time to be with her, whispering words he’s not even sure he understands in her ear, promising her forever and happily ever after.

She doesn’t laugh at him, but she does laugh and they fall into bed and into each other. Sex is like laughing and music and everything else, tangled up in ways he doesn’t quite understand. She rides the bus with them from time to time, and Jason watches in a sort of wonder as she and Cooley talk, on a wavelength Jason doesn’t have access to, set apart in a way that doesn’t quite make him jealous but, if he’s honest, sure as hell makes him understand why Cooley looks at him the way he does when Jason’s sitting too close to Patterson, working on a new song.

When Shonna leaves the bus before they head north for another show, Jason sits across from Cooley at the table, passing over a beer before taking a drink of his own. They’re friends, if they’re pressed to give it a label, and they’re not if they think about it at all. Cooley takes the beer and gives Jason a smile nonetheless. Jason nods and maybe it’s enough. Cooley’s always going to be there. Jason knows that without telling. He’s the new kid on the block, a new toy and eventually he’ll lose his shine and his sparkle, and Patterson’ll find something newer. It’s all there in Cooley’s hooded eyes and Jason wants to tell him he’s wrong. Patterson won’t ever find something new so much as he’ll go back to the thing he’s always had, but maybe Cooley knows that without saying, like everything else, since Cooley never says much at all.

**

When Earl leaves the band, it’s not a surprise, but that doesn’t mean any one of them is particularly prepared for it. It’s Cooley who makes the suggestion, only it’s more a decision, and the rest of them have no reason not to fall in line. It solves every problem – giving Jason back his marriage and giving him someone else besides Patterson to relate to, gives Cooley back the balance he needs. It also, Jason realizes, gives Cooley a friend he didn’t have before. Jason doesn’t begrudge him that, though he’s surprised at how quickly Shonna and Cooley become fast friends, a little sister and her older brother, protective and menacing all at once. Jason thinks they’re both like bantam roosters, small and scrawny and puffed up like they’re bigger than they are, daring him to step too close.

Jason’s too fucking happy to care about anything but having Shonna with him all the time. They play at Cooley’s house and he’s in love all over again, having her smile back at him with a dangerous kind of excitement in her eyes. Things have changed and haven’t and he almost wishes he didn’t have a guitar to play so he could hold her and feel the music come through her. As it is, he just smiles like a blithering idiot and reminds everyone that she’s his bass player, his girl, his wife, his his his, and he’s never been fucking happier in his life. His friends and his wife and his _band_ are all one thing now, and Jason’s pretty sure that, as far as heaven goes, it has to pale in comparison to this.

He’s wrong, of course. That becomes apparent soon enough. Buses are small and resentments get big fast, full of stale air and too cold air conditioning and too many miles and not enough sleep and women and men clamoring for attention from two feet away. There’s Patterson’s divorce that blows up in everyone’s face, like fucking glass splinters that dig in deep, shrapnel they can’t protect themselves from. After that, Cooley and Patterson draw into each other, and the circle gets smaller, only somehow Jason is on the outside and Shonna isn’t. He’s not sure how it happens that his band became her band, and he’s alone in the back of the bus, listening to music disconnected from him.

**

Patterson watches Jason withdraw and knows it’s partly his fault, knows he shouldn’t take it out on the kid, but he doesn’t know what else to do or how to stop it. Cooley’s the one real thing in Patterson’s life other than music, and music isn’t music without Cooley there. Patterson’s hurting like a wounded lion and he can’t help swiping his claws at anyone who comes within striking distance. It’s a bitch in the recording studio, and even the music takes a while to win them all over. It’s not quite cohesive and they toss out more than they keep. Eventually though, they get the damn thing recorded, and even though it feels cathartic, Jason still stands aside when they talk, almost like he’s afraid that he’s got a target painted on his back.

Patterson asks Shonna about Jason, too embarrassed to ask Jason himself, because he thinks he ought to already know the answer, that maybe it’s too late to ask. Shonna gives him something that sounds like an answer but isn’t one at all, and Patterson does his best to let it be enough. He doesn’t have words for Jason right now, he poured them all out at his kitchen table, and he can’t help feeling a little happy that Jason’s not so fucking stupid in love anymore, that someone else is hurting enough that Patterson’s not the only one. He’s a selfish fuck, and he knows it, and he knows knowing it doesn’t change anything, but it’s the best he can do at the time.

The tour goes on and the bus isn’t the place it used to be. It’s not a haven anymore, it’s sniping and pissing and moaning and there are sides taken and battle lines drawn. Jason and Shonna are slowly falling apart, and Jason’s working on something solo. Patterson gets that better than Jason probably thinks, since he can see the words eating the kid up inside. Shonna plays the bass for him sometimes, riding shotgun on Jason’s dangerous lyrics. Jason weaves stories in ways that make Patterson a little jealous, and a few of the songs kill him. Cooley leaves the room for a smoke when Jason plays “Chicago Promenade” for the first time, and Patterson’s never felt so gutted, never felt like he let someone down so much. Jason’s grin at the end is shit-eating and fucking ecstatic and Patterson just shakes his head, trying to convey the fact that Jason’s breaking his heart and leaving them all behind.

**

The divorce is final and Jason wonders how they went from what they were to what they are now. All he can remember when he tries is that he loved her like breathing, that she was what made his world go ‘round, what made it all make sense. Now he’s got nothing but words he doesn’t remember how to sing and pain that aches like his heart’s broken and shattered, lacerating internal organs as it falls apart. They try – they all try, even Cooley – but he laid it all out on the “Daylight” track, and they all knew it was over and done even before it ever was.

Shonna wants words, and all Jason ever had to give was lyrics, and they’re not enough. Whispers when there should be shouts. It doesn’t work and so Jason decides to make his solo album, which is like a Truckers’ album – Patterson producing and playing, Shonna playing, all the guys chipping in on the music and in the booth. Cooley comes by, leans against the wall and smokes a cigarette or two, nothing revealed in his face. He’s not there when they lay down “Chicago Promenade,” and Jason’s not sure he could sing it if he was. The look on Patterson’s face is enough, gut-wrenching and trying to hard to keep it all together. Jason chokes up on the first take and they do it again, and again and one more time and he’s pretty sure that, eventually, it’ll stop making him ache inside.

After that there are discussions, some he’s included in and some he isn’t. Eventually it comes down to a solo career for him. It’s an unspoken agreement that Shonna needs the band more than he does, since he’s got plans of his own. He nods and accepts it, because what else can he do? Fighting it wouldn’t change anything, as they’ve all moved on without even thinking of looking back. Jason just gathers his things and packs his bags, moving out, moving on. He’s seen plenty of break ups and plenty of divorces, and he knows all the mutual friends have to choose.

He wanted a new way, just not quite like this. He wanted to sing his own things and come back and sing theirs, be part of everything and still have something of his own. Now he’s got nothing but a clichéd country song – lost his wife and his band and his family and his best friends and he wonders how he went from having it all to having nothing to call his own.

**

The first show without Jason goes about like shit on a hot day, and Patterson drinks way too much that night. He can feel it churning in his stomach and he wants to spit it all out. Instead, he mumbles an apology and stumbles off the stage. Everyone says it’s great, Patterson’s vocals are amazing and heartfelt, and he hates them all in a way he’s never hated anyone before. He loves the crowd and loves his job, and the feeling makes it worse than just Jason being gone. Cooley doesn’t try to stop him, doesn’t say a word, which makes Patterson drink even more. He’s not sure which bottle he’s on when he knocks on Cooley’s door, too torn up and twisted to think of home as anything else.

Cooley opens the door and looks at him for a long moment and then steps back, inviting him in. Patterson knows Cooley’s house better than his own, and the couch is right where he left it when he had to sleep there. Cooley steers him over and sits him down then grabs a bottle of Jim Beam off the shelf and brings it over. He hands it to Patterson first, letting him break the seal and swallow down as much as he can hold in one breath. He lets it burn for as long as he can, and then he hands it back to Cooley, starting a ritual as many years old as they’ve known each other, too many to count anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Cooley rumbles as he tugs Patterson close, letting him lean into him. Patterson takes advantage, half in Cooley’s lap and face buried against his chest. Patterson doesn’t cry, but he sweats tears like he’s onstage, lost in the performance. He wants Cooley to stop lying, because he can’t take it if the only person in his life who is unfailingly honest with him suddenly isn’t. “I’m sorry that you’re hurting.”

Patterson laughs, somewhere deep in his chest where it still hurts, but not as much. That’s the truth, as close as Mike Cooley can fucking say it. He’s not sorry he sided with Shonna, and he’s not sorry that Jason’s gone, and he’s not sorry that maybe he was one of the reasons. He’s sorry that Patterson’s feeling like this, that Patterson hurts. “I really fucking am.”

“I know.” Cooley pulls him closer and lets Patterson get it all out. “I know.” He looks up after a while and Cooley’s eyes are fixed on him, like Patterson’s something he can’t look away from, just in case, like everything else lately, he might disappear. Patterson kisses him, and Cooley kisses back, and the rest is all a blur, of booze and something more, but all Patterson knows in the morning is that he’s still with Mike Cooley, and even if the rest of the world falls apart, that’s never going to change.

**

Athens is the hardest place for Jason to be, even though it’s home. Athens is small clubs and hot spots, places where the Truckers play and used to play and where he finds audiences that come to listen and some that want the truth of the matter. He doesn’t have that to give them, because he’s not even sure what the truth is, only what he knows and that’s got nothing to do with what Cooley knows or Patterson knows or what Shonna’s side of the story might be.

He has his own band now and his own album, a website and a tour. He’s got clubs lined up and venues with his name on the reader board, and there are articles that only spend half the ink talking about the Truckers and how it all ended. There are decent reviews and good reviews and a nice paragraph from Patterson. He writes something of his own, but it doesn’t come out right, and there are questions and sore spots, and so he just cuts it down to the fact that it’s over and that’s the end.

It’s not of course, because he’s in Athens and they’re in Athens when they’re not all on tour, so he’s never away from all of it. So many people know them all, and he can see the questions that still linger, even after all this time. He’s gotten used to that, but he’s not sure he’ll ever get use to being in Athens and going out, knowing they’re playing. He can’t help but stand in the alleys where they used to drink and smoke and wait their turn to play and lean against the walls, listening to the music he knows by heart go on without him.  



End file.
